


I Want to Break Free

by Faithchan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Hopeful Ending, Hurt Crowley, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 04:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19265983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faithchan/pseuds/Faithchan
Summary: He'd often said that he didn't so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards. In many ways, this was true. But in one key way, it was not, as he did Fall. It was fast and hard and painful and terrifying. And remembering was almost as bad as Falling.





	I Want to Break Free

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop thinking about Crowley's Fall, so this just kinda happened.

He'd often said that he didn't so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards. In many ways, this was true. He didn't ask to be a demon. He didn't really rebel, he certainly never took up arms to fight against anyone. He just asked questions, wanted to understand what was going on in creation. He had a curious nature, not an evil one. He also had a clever nature. An unfortunate reality of creation - which he came to understand the hard way - is that being clever _and_ curious often leads to asking the kinds of questions that can cause trouble for oneself. Even unintentionally. So really, he was very justified in not liking to think of himself as having truly Fallen. Mostly, though, he didn't like to think about it at all.

Because he did Fall. It was fast and hard and painful and terrifying. And remembering was almost as bad as Falling. Remembering glimpses of Heaven. Remembering being part of something that didn't embody pain and suffering. Remembering the moment he was ripped away from it and cast down. Even for centuries afterwards, long after all the rest of the pain had subsided, that one puckered scar where Heaven used to be part of him had still hurt worse than any of the rest of it ever had.

Which was saying something, because the pain of landing was excruciating.

A thousand mile freefall into a pool of boiling sulfur. The impact was bad, but the burning… oh, the burning was worse. For the first instant, it actually felt so cold, as if he were being sealed in a block of ice… but only for an instant before the sensation of heat took over. And once it took over, it didn't stop.

It seared his very being, burning him, seeping into him, as if it was trying to immolate the very core of who he was. No matter how he twisted and writhed and tried to escape it, it stuck like burning pitch. He screamed until he couldn't recognize his own voice, until all that came out was a long hiss. He tried to cry, but no tears would come. All he could do was thrash, desperate for the pain to stop. 

Finally, it did. Or at least, it dulled enough for him to simply lie still and heave great dry sobs that still only hissed in his ears. He lost track of time, lying limp on the ground, now solid beneath him. 

He tried to push himself up off his stomach. But his arms didn't seem to want to work. He tried to pull his knees up under himself, but it felt as though his legs were roped together, and they wouldn't work like they should. Something was terribly wrong. A strange sensation clenched tight in his chest, his thoughts starting to turn over so fast that he couldn't keep up with the flood of them, everything was too much, too dark, too rank. It was almost as though he could taste the stench in the air. He needed to understand, he needed to wrap his head around what was happening, desperate for a single beam of light to illuminate things. He willed himself to focus through the hazy gloom and see what was going on.

Everywhere he turned he saw twisted, wretched creatures… or semblances of creatures: maggots piled in a huge heap, as if trying to mold themselves into one solid being; a huge, soggy, soft-bodied thing that was trying to walk, but with a gait so awkward to be utterly impractical; some kind of pale, scaly abomination that looked as though it had never seen sunlight and may possibly burst into flames if it ever did. 

He tried to move again, and though the method felt alien, he was able to inch forwards. He tried again to sit up, but he still couldn't feel his arms or hands to push off the floor. His body didn't seem to want to bend and fold along the same planes he expected it to, but was willing to twist itself in ways that should never work. This was wrong, everything was wrong. And what was driving him mad was that he knew he was wrong, but he couldn't hold on to an image of what was  _ right _ . Every time he tried to reach for the idea of what form felt like home, it slipped away from him. 

_ Oh, God, what have You done to us? What have You done to me? _

He continued to drag himself along the ground, moving for the sake of moving because at least it gave him something to think about. Learn how to move, make sense of something solid and real.

His concentration was disrupted when the pile of maggots began to speak, with a million voices each so small as to be nothing yet working in tandem to produce one sound. It was terrible to hear.

"God has cast us out! Judged us as unworthy and cursed us! We will not simply accept this, we won't stop fighting! Cast us down to this pit in order to create a perfect paradise above? I don't think so! Strip us of our form and we shall form anew. Angels fell, but demons shall rise! We will take our revenge! We shall bring chaos and disorder, pain and temptation and damnation to those creations God would put above us. Who among us is ready to begin? You! You over there, crawling on the floor!" All the creatures turned to look at each other, as they were mostly all crawling on the floor. "No, you, the crawly one with no arms and legs. You seem to be moving around well enough. What do you say to going up to this great new world and making some trouble?" 

He realized simultaneously that the maggots were talking to him and that he couldn't feel his arms and legs because he had none. The tightness inside him squeezed his breath again, but he nodded his head and managed to hiss out a distinct "Yessssss." He wasn't so sure about all the talk of destruction and damnation, and frankly half of what the maggots had said wasn't making sense to him, only prickling like half memories; but getting out of this pit was at the top of his priority list. If his apparent ability to figure out how to move in his new form more quickly than the rest of the demons around him was his ticket out, he was sure as Hell taking it (and there is no more surety of Hell than being in it).

"Good! Good, Crawly, go now and sow the seeds of destruction. God decided that we don't belong in a perfect world; well then there will be no perfect world because we are not so easily destroyed! We shall take the world, we shall take back Heaven. Cast us out and judge us to be evil? We will show them how evil we can _truly_ be!"

A pathway winding upwards appeared before Crawly, and he moved towards it as quickly as he could (which he found to actually be surprisingly fast). He lost track of how long he climbed, but he didn't dare slow down or stop to rest. Once he twisted his head back and caught a glimpse of the rest of his body, glistening black in the gloom… and behind him, the pathway he'd traveled up was crumbling to dust and falling back into the pit. He didn't look back again. 

He came to a wall of dirt, and he paused for a moment; but the idea of falling once again as the pathway crumbled beneath him was motivation enough to press his face into the dirt, using a side-to-side motion to dig in. He tried to close his eyes when his head was enveloped by the earth, but to no avail. He pressed and wriggled and thrashed his way up and through and finally,  _ finally _ out into a world that was green and clear and warm but not hot. 

He slithered to a soft patch of grass bathed in sunlight and allowed himself to have a moment. He took in the lush trees, tall grasses, blue sky. He gazed off to the east, and through a break in the trees he saw the top of a tall wall, which gave him pause.

_ Even paradise can be a prison, I guess. _

On top of the wall, a figure strode in to view, white and gleaming, with the hilt of a sword gripped in his hand. The figure was holding the weapon awkwardly away from himself, though Crawly couldn't tell if it was because of a fundamental discomfort with the idea of wielding it or because the blade was engulfed in flames. The figure's white robes twitched nervously… wait, not robes. Wings. Great white wings, which he spread out a bit before pulling them in close to his back again.

Something sparked back to life inside Crawly at the sight of those wings. The image of himself came through clearly; two arms, two legs, big wings. He could almost feel an outline of that self within the long solid body he was currently resting in. Moreover, though, he could remember things. Not everything. But he remembered who he was… not his name, but the far more basic knowledge of Who He Was. He understood why there was a great hollow ache inside of him. The words "angel" and "demon" meant something now that he hadn't understood in the pit. 

He decided that he didn't much like any of it.

But he'd agreed to play his part, and he really wanted to avoid getting pulled back down into that pit. God had already rejected him, he couldn't risk alienating the only beings left in creation who would have him. Even if he was actively trying to avoid being around them. 

As he slithered off to go see what kind of trouble he could make, he glanced back at the figure on the wall. He felt a tug inside, and he began to wonder if perhaps he could shed this cursed skin. Maybe, if he managed it, he could go talk to the angel on the wall and see if he could help him make any more sense out of this strange new world.

  
  


*END*


End file.
